This is an article that I've written for a Christian magazine on the spiritual practice of listening. Feedback very welcome.
3. Good listening asks perceptive questions.
It is the fool who “takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in exercising his opinions” (Proverbs 18:2), and thus “gives an answer before he hears” (Proverbs 18:13). “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water,” says Proverbs 20:5, “but a man of understanding will draw it out.” Good listening asks perceptive, open-ended questions, that don’t tee up yes-no answers, but gently peel the onion and probe beneath the surface. It watches carefully for non-verbal communication, but doesn’t interrogate and pry into details the speaker doesn’t want to share, but meekly draws them out and helps point the speaker to fresh perspectives through careful, but genuine, questions.
4. Good listening is ministry.
Listening, for Christians, is a better service than speaking, more often than not. God wants more of the Christian than just our good listening, but not less. There will be days when the most important ministry we do is square our shoulders to some hurting person, uncross our arms, lean forward, make eye contact, and hear their pain all the way to the bottom.
5. Good listening prepares us to speak well.
Sometimes good listening only listens, and ministers best by keeping quiet, but typically good listening readies us to minister words of grace to precisely the place where the other is in need. As German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.” While the fool “gives an answer before he hears” (Proverbs 18:13), the wise person tries to resist defensiveness, and to listen from a non-judgmental stance, training himself not to formulate opinions or responses until the full update is on the table and the whole story has been heard.
6. Good listening reflects our relationship with God.
Our inability to listen well to others may be symptomatic of a chatty spirit that is droning out the voice of God. Good listening is a great means of grace in the dynamic of true Christian fellowship. Not only is it a channel through which God continues to pour his grace into our lives, but it’s also his way of using us as his means of grace in the lives of others. It may be one of the hardest things we learn to do, but we will find it worth every ounce of effort.
Listening is one of the easiest things
Christians will ever do, and one of the hardest. In a sense,
listening is easy — or hearing is easy. It doesn’t
demand the initiative and energy required in speaking.
The charter text for Christian
listening might be James 1:19: “Let every person be quick to hear,
slow to speak, slow to anger.” It’s simple enough in principle,
and nearly impossible to live. Too often we are slow to hear, quick
to speak, and quick to anger. So learning to listen well won’t
happen overnight. It requires discipline, effort, and
intentionality. You get better with time, they say. Becoming a
better listener hangs not on one big resolve to do better in a single
conversation, but on developing a pattern of little resolves to focus
in on particular people in specific moments. So what I want to offer
here are a few lessons I have learnt about what it means for
Christians to listen.
1. Good listening requires patience.
Perhaps we think we know where the
speaker is going, and so already begin formulating our response. Or
we were in the middle of something when someone started talking to
us, or have another commitment approaching, and we wish they were
done already. Or maybe we’re half-eared because our attention is
divided, by our external surroundings or our internal rebounding to
self. Good listening requires concentration and means we’re in
with both ears, and that we hear the other person out till they’re
done speaking. When we are people quick to speak, it takes
Spirit-powered patience to not only be quick to hear, but to keep on
hearing.
2. Good listening is an act of love.
Half-eared listening really despises
the brother or sister and is only waiting for a chance to speak and
thus get rid of the other person. Poor listening rejects, good
listening embraces. Poor listening diminishes the other person,
while good listening invites them to exist, and to matter. Good
listening goes hand in hand with the mindset of Christ; it flows from
a humble heart that counts others more significant than ourselves; it
looks not only to its own interests, but also the interests of others
(Philippians 2:3-5). It is patient and kind (1 Corinthians 13:4).
3. Good listening asks perceptive questions.
It is the fool who “takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in exercising his opinions” (Proverbs 18:2), and thus “gives an answer before he hears” (Proverbs 18:13). “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water,” says Proverbs 20:5, “but a man of understanding will draw it out.” Good listening asks perceptive, open-ended questions, that don’t tee up yes-no answers, but gently peel the onion and probe beneath the surface. It watches carefully for non-verbal communication, but doesn’t interrogate and pry into details the speaker doesn’t want to share, but meekly draws them out and helps point the speaker to fresh perspectives through careful, but genuine, questions.
4. Good listening is ministry.
Listening, for Christians, is a better service than speaking, more often than not. God wants more of the Christian than just our good listening, but not less. There will be days when the most important ministry we do is square our shoulders to some hurting person, uncross our arms, lean forward, make eye contact, and hear their pain all the way to the bottom.
5. Good listening prepares us to speak well.
Sometimes good listening only listens, and ministers best by keeping quiet, but typically good listening readies us to minister words of grace to precisely the place where the other is in need. As German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.” While the fool “gives an answer before he hears” (Proverbs 18:13), the wise person tries to resist defensiveness, and to listen from a non-judgmental stance, training himself not to formulate opinions or responses until the full update is on the table and the whole story has been heard.
6. Good listening reflects our relationship with God.
Our inability to listen well to others may be symptomatic of a chatty spirit that is droning out the voice of God. Good listening is a great means of grace in the dynamic of true Christian fellowship. Not only is it a channel through which God continues to pour his grace into our lives, but it’s also his way of using us as his means of grace in the lives of others. It may be one of the hardest things we learn to do, but we will find it worth every ounce of effort.